TO THE TUNE OF “EARLY IN THE MORNING”
Dissolving hills
Cradling Lake St. Clair:
The milky light of winter
In the early hours,
A forest old as rain
And a cold sky running south
As far as mind can see
With glaciers calving there.
God made the world
With just a breath:
Three days now
Of hiking through it.
Author's note: The tag in the title "To the Tune of ... " is taken from some very old Chinese poems. I'm writing a series of poems now, each of which has "To the Tune of ... " as part of its title. It's been quite a liberation.
Kevin Hart is a poet and theologian. Born in London and raised in Brisbane, he has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Melbourne. He is currently Professor of Christian Studies at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, US. He travelled to Tasmania several times in the 1980s and early 1990s, mostly to see Gwen Harwood, with whom he was good friends. He visited various parts of the state, including the Cradle-Mountain Lake St Clair National Park, which he describes as “surely one of the most beautiful places on the planet”. Today, the landscape around his home in central Virginia reminds him a little of “some of the untouched grandeur of Tasmania”.
